Why? Because while people still mostly watch sports live – 95 percent of the time in the fourth quarter last year, according to Nielsen – only two-thirds watched “general drama” shows live.

Watching live, of course, usually translates into watching more commercials.

Live viewing also leads to more social media interaction. Nielsen said that in 2015, only 1.4 percent of all TV programs were about sports, but 49.7 percent of all TV-related Twitter posts were about sports.